"The coldest man I know; it’s criminal what we’re charging folks. They’ll be sleeping with the fishes." Were everyday phrases I heard tossed around a lot among the extended members of Maria's family. I never thought too much  of it, with her parents being in the business of creating and fixing air conditioners, and heating and cooling systems for cars, schools, hospitals, casinos, and homes in the Tri-State Area. I ran on the assumption that it was tossed around as an affectation among repair men. Her familia were a competitive bunch, and a simple game of cornhole could become life and death sometimes. With them inviting rival repair men over to family BBQ’s and having them play a game, where it didn't seem like the guests were having too much fun.

That’s where I liked to pop in and lighten the mood, as the only other outsider at these shindings; I knew what used to make me feel welcome and comfortable; and that was to give it right back. All the shit talk.

A few of her cousins, namely Vinnie, had a hot temper and thin skin when it came to joking around. Sometimes, a gentle elbow nudge after a zinger from me wasn’t enough to lighten his mood and it would take making them one of my patented cocktails to smooth things over.

Oh, I did make the mistake once, and  had used some raspberry liqueur I found by a window in their house and some expired Kahula, which I had no clue went bad on a group of cocktails I handed out to Vinnie, the couple other cousins who were hazing this poor fella, and the local business owner.  I called the cocktail, Blue Balls, and everyone got a good laugh from my naming.

They all fell sick instantly, right around the pool area, and all of them had to be hospitalized. They canceled the party, and I was so ashamed I spent the afternoon cleaning up the mess I was responsible for.

Her father was so impressed with my cleaning that he offered me a contract to work in the city, cleaning up a few of their local businesses after hours. I took up the offer without a second’s notice; how could I not?

 We didn't live in the city, I had never and Maria moved out here to go to college to study photography, I'd always catch her sitting in her car, staring at the architecture of local banks, museums, and police stations. It's actually how she and I first met.

I rapped on her window three times with my knuckles, and she slowly pulled the expensive Nikon camera from her face. The lens was massive on this thing, the kinda camera that when you really focus lets you see for miles, and inside every pour of someone’s face or inside every nook and cranny of any structure.

I’ll never forget the pattern of the Leopard print ascot she was wearing that day, or those cool bug-eyed, don’t tell her i said this, but the lenses of the sunglasses she had were these wide ovals that, to my untrained eye appeared like bugs, like an ant or something. I’ve always been a bug collector of sorts, I like to see the bigger ones in person, I even own a couple'a them fightin’ beatles from Japan. They got loose in my neighborhood one day,and well that’s a story for another time.

My first night out, ah, I can still smell the sanitizer hitting the windows in the corporate offices and an unnamed social media company. It was like all my current jobs have become, never the same location twice, which initially made me feel like I was doing a bad job as a cleaner. And, if I was doing bad I needed to know why.

Because, well, it wasn’t always the same thing, some nights I’d clean spills that one of our–our, listen to me I’ve been working for the family for a few months and I’m already using terms like that. It makes me swell with pride to know I’ve been so welcomed.

Anyways, sometimes when they were doing an install, the spray from the AC and heaters would leave this red stuff on the floor, and I’d need to come in and dissolve it. It was easy, and people would always run away from me in my gas mask, and plate armor.

I was told to wear it because the HVAC units can be contaminated, making it dangerous for anyone around, that’s why they gave me the gun. At first, I thought wow, are there some kinda monsters being created by these HVAC things, like, did I just isekai’d into a low-budget netflix show that gets canceled after one season, where I’m fighting monsters under the cover of being a cleaner.

No, nothing as exciting as that. Just cleaning up messes, messes that the family’s tech’s don’t have time for.  The gun was to scare away the people crazy enough to stick around during one’a these coolant leaks. I was ordered to fire it into the air, and scream for everyone to get the fuck outta here!

The inspectors for the building code were always late, and due to always being late, always and I mean always needed a police escort. Sometimes, the cops would have a hard time finding where the leak was, so I’d break a window open and scream at the cops to come and get it, it’s right here. One time, my finger slipped on the trigger, sending a burp of bullets out into the parking lot.

I accidently hit one’a the cops, and spent the next week visiting him in the hospital. I prepared one’a my get well cocktails for him, with Kahlua and Raspberry Liqueur of course, but he got sick also. Two bottles of Kahula in a row I’d used that got people sick.

I of course did my best job of cleaning up the mess, and it was then I met a security guard at the hospital, who had his own theories about what was really going on at St.Thomas’ hospital.

“Bodies come in, but don’t go out.” He was convinced, and did a great job of talking me into it. There was a new body racket going on in this hospital. One that was more than just about taking care’a your sick and dying loved ones, but one that was about taking the life outta’em, whether by cash or suckin’ the souls outta their asses.

The conversation turned to what I was doing here, and what I do for work. When I explained my job, and who I work for, the guard, a seemingly good dude, asked me to see my equipment. I agreed and walked him into the parking lot.

He was impressed with the gun and gas mask, and the plate wasn't a plate, he asked if I worked in a kitchen, cause this wasn't a plate it was armor. “Yeah, like a knight, like platemail. I didn’t know what else to say.” 

He told me he’d been investigating my new family for a few years now as an independent bail bondsman, and wanted to make something big of his first case as a private investigator, but in order to take something on, a study on a family.

“Study, like, what? A documentary?” He said, yeah, but more like a candid camera with a badge and a gun. “Like cops?” “No, not like cops. It’s like, you know Dick Tracey.” He snapped his fingers, finding the right reference in his mind. “Knives out.” I had seen that movie, and the sequel, I didn’t know Daniel Craig wasn’t from Alabama or somethin’ till after when Maria had pointed out he was James Bond.

This led to an argument between us, where I, being the ass I am, said there are a lot of James bonds. I didn’t know that she meant the most recent, and in my defense, she never stated anything like that.

Part embarrassed for my lack of ability to make a real cocktail, part of me being a lush; I had been keeping a cooler with what was left of the Raspberry liqueur from Maria’s dad’s place inside a cooler in my trunk. I tried changing out the ice as often as possible, but some days my work was busy, and between cleaning up office buildings, and spending time with Maria; I’d forget about checking the drinks, and cleaning the water up.

I split a cocktail with the security guard, I watched, again after his first sip his eyes swallow into the pit of his skull, his stomach curdle, as the big man toppled over onto me, his fist grabbing my collar, nearly pulling me to the dirt with him, as he had gathered a knife from a sheathe somewhere on his ankle.

I managed to step out of the way, and he fell to his last breath. I sped inside the hospital, letting someone know, through a bit of a fib that I’d found the guard drinking in the parking lot and he collapsed.

They did the finger on the throat thing, I guess there was no pulse, and his face had grown that light blue shade of an icepack. The medic wiped his eyes, he looked tired, I wanted to console him, so I put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me, and these are words I’d never forget. “This is the coldest man I’ve ever seen.”

His blood had dropped to below zero, upon inspecting his body for contaminants, I had heard through the grapevine that he had ingested coolant into air conditioning systems. I don’t know how that got into my cocktails, all that was in my trunk was that Liqueur and Kahula from her pop’s bar.